


We're In Our Better Place

by vrepit_nah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Bottom Keith (Voltron), Bottom Lance (Voltron), Confident Keith (Voltron), Dry Humping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fights, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pet Names, Pining, Rimming, Rutting, Sad Lance (Voltron), Smitten Keith (Voltron), Smitten Lance (Voltron), Smut, Sweet Keith (Voltron), Switching, Top Keith (Voltron), Top Lance (Voltron), True Love's Kiss, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vrepit_nah/pseuds/vrepit_nah
Summary: Days 22, 29, 30-Pet Names, Battle Partners, True Love's KissEver since Keith found Lance tucked between two garbage bins like they were shelter, shakily holding a shotgun in his hands, Keith swore to protect him.Now, they have to fight and travel through zombie-infested lands to get to Safe Haven, and love unfolds throughout the story.They were so close.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 293





	We're In Our Better Place

**Author's Note:**

> A mix of these days because I started writing for KlanceTropeMonth by the 20th and I ended up getting so much anxiety to complete it on time.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!!

Ever since Keith found Lance tucked between two garbage bins like they were shelter, shakily holding a shotgun in his hands, Keith swore to protect him. As teens in a zombie run world, human allies were scarce to come by, and Lance, who had witnessed his father being overwhelmed by zombies, had gotten split up from his large family on the run.

So, when Keith offered to help him to the safe zone over a thousand miles to New York, they were a team. A pair. They promised never to leave each other, and Lance cried when Keith made him swear that if one of them gets bitten, it’s the other person’s job to end them immediately.

Lance, Keith thought with a certain sadness as he held the sleeping teen, is too good for this world. Lance is a lover, but hell if he doesn’t fight for someone he loves. Lance doesn’t deserve this shitty apocalyptic world. He deserves a nice home with his family where he can smile and laugh.

Keith wants to make him happy.

It starts after they fight their way out of a bridged area, three months since joining Keith. Lance is a great shot and had Keith’s back and they got out of it narrowly. When they scoured the area, making sure it was secure for them to rest for the night, Keith popped open the rare fruit tins and shared it with Lance.

Lance looked so happy. He was smiling bright enough to light a room as he chomped on the sweet peach slices. Keith kissed him that night.

Lance kissed him back just as eagerly.

Keith only had a long blade and a heavy steel baseball bat that he twisted barbed wires around to protect them. Lance fished a couple of guns and ammunition from rotting remains of corpses along the dirty blood-slicked roads. Keith hated how Lance vomited later, looking so pale and shaky that Keith had to hug him and calm him down.

Lance looked at him with teary blue eyes. “What if they were someone we knew?”

Keith pressed a kiss to his head and mumbled, “then they’re in a better place. We have to keep moving to get to our better place.”

They move fast on their feet, not stopping until they find a place secure enough to sleep in before they make their way to New York. Apparently, there are huge walls built in the city of Manhattan that keeps the zombies out. Scientists are working on cures, as well, but Keith wonders how far they have gotten. No news from passing survivors bring anything except which roads are best to travel.

The pair had to fight humans, too. Shopping malls and supermarkets were a battle zone for survivors who wanted to hoard, and Keith fought with the skin of his teeth to grab food while Lance threatened them at gun’s length, providing the distraction until they booked it out of there with a week’s worth of supply.

Keith treated him to a tin of chocolate biscuits (he received a long, deep kiss that had him dizzy), and then he bandaged up the shallow slice of a knife wound on Lance’s side carefully. When he was done, Lance tugged at him. He fed him a biscuit before holding up a flowery red rubber band. “Look what I snatched up!” Lance proclaimed proudly. “Now you can tie up your hair.”

Keith let Lance scoop up his hair and tie it. His choppy bangs fell out a bit but when Lance brushed them aside and cupped his cheek, Keith smiled. Lance had gone wide eyed because Keith??? _Smiling_??? _His_ stoic boyfriend???

That was the first night they made love, on a tattered mat inside an abandoned building in the light of a single torch, humping into each other desperately and kissing deeply, driving each other into their climaxes. Keith had never felt like this before, so in love with this sweet Cuban boy that had his back.

Lance’s skin was soft underneath the heavy clothes. Keith had the time of his life mapping the boy under him with dark kisses and bites and every moan wrenched out of Lance made Keith vibrate with happiness. This was five months into their slow journey, and it was the first time Lance blurted out his love for Keith when he accidently fell on Lance as he was rutting into his legs. Lance was laughing giddily as Keith said it back.

Lance was also creative as hell, especially when he panics. He got them out of sticky situations with spontaneous innovations, like the one time he made a tangled net of barbed wires, nicking his fingers into bloody shreds, but his priority was helping a struggling, trapped Keith.

Then the net fell over the zombies and Lance yanked on it so hard the zombies toppled over. Keith watched with awe as Lance started the half-dead jeep nearby and sent it riding by itself into a canyon, dragging the groaning, oozy zombies with it.

Lance pouted at his fingers then after the coast was clear. “Aw, these things are gonna irritate the fuck outta me,” he complained.

Keith was staring. Only a moment ago, Lance’s gaze was a furious blue fire and the way he moved was swift, confident, _intense_ … and suddenly it took a 180 and the soft, caring boy was back, smiling crookedly at Keith as they cleaned their weapons and walked.

Keith was a little bitter because he never wanted Lance to turn into something like… _that_. It looked cold. But one look at Lance again, seeing him shining at Keith and nuzzling into his hair settled the feeling into admiration. He knew not to ever get on Lance’s bad side again.

He loved watching Lance’s animated reactions when he taught the Cuban about the stars and he made up comical stories on the spot.

Keith told him the story behind Andromeda and Perseus, where the hero rescued her as she was chained to a seaside rock to die. Perseus killed everyone who threatened to come between them. When Keith finished, Lance took a long look at the constellations in the dark sky before he caught Keith’s hand and said, “just like you rescued me. Just like you’d fight for me.”

Keith sincerely promised, “I’d fight anyone who got between us. You know that.”

“Do you know I’d fight anyone who would ever hurt you?” Lance asks, tucking his face into Keith’s neck.

Keith carded his fingers through the boy’s short hair, drifting past the thin hairless scar on the side of his head. “I knew the second you killed those zombies with a blow dryer, Andromeda.”

Lance laughed softly and it was the most angelic thing Keith had ever heard. Most heartwarming thing he had ever felt. He needed them to live.

Lance sighed, a hand coming to brush Keith’s waist. “I can’t wait till we reach our better place, Keith. We wouldn’t need to fight. We can sleep without wondering if we’d wake up the next morning.”

“We’d get better food than tinned potatoes and beans.”

“What if New York’s not all it’s cracked up to be?” Lance wonders, softly tracing kisses along Keith’s jaw. Keith hums and goes to wrap a leg around Lance’s hip, pressing them close. He faces Lance, eyes soft and noses brushing.

His breath fans over Lance’s mouth as he says, “well, then that’s not our better place.”

Lance frowns. “I thought New York was—”

“Lance, our better place is together. Happy. _Safe_. It doesn’t have to be New York. It could be a desert shack in the Sahara or in a castle in space. As long as we can find ourselves living again.” He kisses Lance gently, reeling at Lance’s heady taste. “As long as you’re with me.”

Lance is smiling now, blushing hard. “I thought we agreed I’d be the smooth-talker?”

“What’s that? I can’t understand over your stammering.”

Keith receives a playful shove and he chuckles. His back aches on the hard, broken floor and he can hear a clanking in the far distance, even eight floors high in this dirty building. But the tall windows show the deep night sky and they lay on their sides to watch it like every night.

Lance sighs. “I can’t wait to spend my life with you.”

“Me, too, Lance.”

Further on their journey they pair up with another duo, a girl and boy. Apparently, Lance knew them, and he was ecstatic as he hugged the large boy, Hunk and tussled with Pidge, the young girl. Keith was impressed with them because they made it so far with technology and a drone system they made together to scout and retrieve food with.

It made fights easier because Hunk was a hell of a shot with his automatic and Pidge found the best escape routes that would confuse the zombies.

They are now so close to safe haven, New York. They can see the gates in the distance. Lance is holding Keith’s hand tightly, brimming with excitement. Hunk and Pidge are chattering about what they’d find and if they’re families are safe. Keith is thrilled because they get to rest now, after months of fighting and hurting and bruising.

But they weren’t all bad, Keith thinks as he watches Lance beam with joy. Lance made it bearable, he made it worth the fight or Keith would’ve given up long ago. Lance was his strength.

In their celebration as they walk faster, no one notices the almost dead zombie on the road until it clamps its fingers around Keith’s ankle and bites into his flesh. Keith tumbles down with a scream and kicks it away, startling everyone.

Immediately, Lance brings out his gun and shoots the zombie in the head. It dies instantly. When he turns to find Keith on the ground, staring at the rip in his jeans with blood staining it, he pales.

“Keith?” his voice is shaky.

Keith looks up at him. He can already feel his skin turning mottled grey. He…he’s dying. He’s becoming one of them. So, Keith fixes Lance with a gentle look. “Lance,” he calls out and his voice quivers. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay.”

Pidge and Hunk are watching warily, their hands drifting to their weapons. Lance falls to his knees when Keith speaks, and as he tries to get near, Keith holds out his hand.

“Don’t come closer.”

Lance’s face twists into horror. “Keith, wait, no—”

“I need you to be strong for me.”

“Keith, stop talking like that.”

Keith hates this. Not because he’s dying. Not because he can feel his thighs already begin to decay. He hates this because Lance is now teary eyed, and he can’t even touch him to comfort him.

Lance is crying for him.

“Keith, just—just hold on, we can make it to the safe haven. We can—” and Lance’s voice cracks painfully, a brittle sound that shakes Keith to his core. He is trying to edge close, but Keith is crawling backward with every step. “We can still go to our better place, Keith, if you could just wa—”

Keith doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tear drops darken his pants. He can’t move back anymore without feeling like his flesh is eating itself and he knows by the hitch in Lance’s breath that he can tell.

So, through the pain and the tears, Keith focuses on Lance. How the setting sun makes his skin look beautifully bronze, how those pretty blue eyes are watery and shining, how Lance’s thin lips move as he speaks.

He remembers the nights they spent stargazing from dirty floors and roofs and how none of that could taint the moments when Lance smiled at him. He was glad he made love to Lance a few times, only for Lance to remember him by.

And as his grey, broken-skinned hand reaches up to touch the red rubber band on his hair, Keith smiles.

They may have not found a better place, but they had a good place in each other. He calls Lance his Andromeda.

That’s what he says to Lance, and he hears a broken sob.

His mind grows soggy and now he’s blinking hard, but he feels this rush of adrenaline, this need, an urge to—to have—to eat.

His teeth itch, and Keith finds himself hungry. Starving. He groans softly, and it’s like his sense of smell triples because he can smell blood, and he wants to drink it and he starves, he wants to sink his teeth into juicy…brains. Into flesh.

Keith’s eyes flash a dangerous red. They’re no longer the indigo Lance has come to love.

Keith is hungry.

And he can smell food a few feet from him.

*

This feels like the worst day of Lance’s life.

Somehow, the day his father died and the same day when he got split up from his family doesn’t compare to this.

Seeing Keith visibly deteriorate in front of him, _crying_. His skin greyed when he mumbled those heartbreaking words and Lance wanted to scream, break something because they were right there, _right fucking there_ and Keith got hurt and he’s going away.

Lance is crumbling on the floor even as Keith groans lowly. He’s crying hard because his heart is being ripped in two. The boy he loves, who loves him, who gives him the special fruit and protects him. His savior is dying, and all Lance wants is to go back to when they were still on the road those months ago.

Keith fought so hard. He didn’t deserve this ending. _Fuck this universe_ , Lance thought angrily, wiping at his eyes.

Keith is rousing and Pidge already has her gun trained on him, something Lance wants to snap at her for, but he understands.

Blood red eyes crack open and focus on him. The mouth Lance spent hours kissing is cracked and shows sharp teeth and a drooling mess over broken lips.

Lance’s breath hitches. He remembers promising Keith, long ago, if one of them turns.

And he knows he can’t do it. He can’t kill the love of his life.

“Lance, get up _now_!” Hunk urges.

Pidge’s gun shakes in her hand. “I’m sorry, Lance.”

Lance shoots up, eyes wide. “No! We can’t kill him! He—he’s—”

“He’s a zombie, Lance. Move, before he gets you, too!”

“He’s _Keith_!”

_“Lance, move!”_

There is a scraping sound and a low rumble from Keith, and it takes only a split second for Lance to turn before he’s met with nails and a growl as Keith launches himself at the Cuban, sending his heart into overdrive.

Lance screams and bites Keith’s outstretched before Keith can bite him, and he tastes yucky and bitter and Lance immediately spits out saliva, backing away hurriedly.

He expects the shot of a bullet from Pidge, but all he hears is a gasp. Keith the zombie has stopped his low growling and is instead standing there, head tilted curiously as he inspects the curved bite on his hand. It’s red, and then slowly, blood seeps out of it.

He looks at Lance as if asking, _‘what the fuck did you just do to me?_ ’ because he has the most disgruntled, _unimpressed_ expression for a zombie.

Hunk is covering his mouth. “That—that’s not supposed to happen.”

Lance is confused and scared and watching Keith from the ground, as the zombie frowns—no, _scowls_ , something so akin to Keith—at the wound. He shakes it and more blood drips down. He prods at it and then recoils.

_“Ow.”_

Everyone goes still.

Pidge is the first to break the silence. “Did he just say _ow_? Zombies aren’t supposed to speak. Or feel pain. What— _oh my god_.”

Lance turns back to Keith where the skin around his bite is lightening, clearing up from the blotchy green and grey, and his heart bursts with this feeling so pure and full when he notices that it’s Keith’s skin popping up, healthy and fair.

Slowly, it travels up his arm and across his face, down to his neck where his body is visibly shuddering, and Keith’s furrowed brows and twisted face is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

But he’s also panicking because _what the fuck is going on?_

Hunk is screaming. “OH MY _GOD_ , Lance, what _the fuck_ did you do? How’d you know that would—"

“I _didn’t_ know, I was panicking so I bit _him_ first!”

“That’s incredible,” Pidge breathes. “That’s—that’s a _cure_ , bitches!”

It takes only a minute for Keith to fully turn human again, and they know because the first thing Lance asks him is, “code name?”

And it takes a second for Keith to blink those beautiful indigo eyes at him, choking out a, “Perseus,” before he collapses.

Lance is already sliding to intercept him, and he cradles him carefully, holding onto Keith tightly and he doesn’t even care if he’s crying again because Keith is looking up at him like it’s the first time he’s seeing him. He brushes dark hair away from his forehead and presses a kiss there.

He’s sobbing hard. “Oh, god, Keith, you scared the shit out of me.”

Keith is mostly confused at the crying boy above him. “What the fuck happened? Shouldn’t I be—no offence—a zombie right now?”

“No!” Lance shakes his head. “I bit you!”

“Why would that be offensive?” Hunk questions.

Pidge is inspecting Keith’s ankle, where, miraculously, the bite has faded to scarring. “By all accounts, you’re supposed to be. I think you’re the first ever cured.”

Keith sits up, patting Lance’s hand as the boy wraps his arms around Keith from behind. His first instinct is to makes sure there are no zombies about because if they get jumped on again, then the universe is really sending them a ‘fuck you!’

Once he finds it clear, he leans back against Lance’s chest and hums at the kisses he places on his neck, mumbling about how much he loves him and how scared he was, but Keith is still reeling from everything. He turns around, cups Lance’s cheeks and squishes them to stop him from talking. “Lance!” Lance nods, tears spilling more even through puffy cheeks. Keith presses a tight kiss to his lips. “Stop talking. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“We’ll tell you on the way. Can you walk?”

They walk to the border and when they are let in after serious checks, and Lance waits nervously, but then they declare Keith clear and they all breathe a sigh of relief. Pidge and Hunk lead the talking segment as they meet the head of research, a woman named Allura and her head scientist, Coran, who look bewildered and shocked at the discovery.

Keith grumbles as they take a sample of his blood, mumbling about how being a zombie wouldn’t get him in this situation. Lance is quick to remind him that being a zombie also means they won’t be able to share a bed and _isn’t that a pity?_

Safe haven is good. It’s sad to see so few people reach there successfully, but the buildings in there are turned into living quarters for survivors. Pidge finds her mom and immediately moves in with her, happily reunited. She also takes a job at the research lab because she’s a genius, and if someone can solve this crisis, it’s her.

Hunk is separated from his family. They are in Samoa while he studies here for a degree, but a phone call tells him they are in a temporary safe house. He’s glad they’re alive.

Lance finds out that his family was picked up by the army on their rounds to rescue survivors. He doesn’t move in with them, but he does stay over for dinner and Keith is brought along. Keith is happy to share that night.

Instead, Lance moves in with Keith in a one-room apartment. They are promised tons of remunerations and awards because they are the reason the cure will be created. They are heroes, especially brave, stupid Lance who decided biting a zombie before they bit him was a good idea.

Keith thinks he is the luckiest man alive.

The spend the entire night going at it like fucking rabbits.

Lance is full of stamina that night because he’s pent up on frustration and he needs his comfort, thank you very much, and he lets Keith drill him into the mattress.

They’re kissing hard and Keith is not holding back which is really hot, and he straddles Lance’s hips with those thick thighs. The room is dark, but the windows are open. They can’t see the sky, only buildings, but they take it. When they are undressed, Keith fingers Lance open with lube Lance stole (he doesn’t know from where, doesn’t ask either, just enjoys it), and Lance is moaning beneath him as he fills him, until Keith’s hips press flush into Lance’s soft ass.

Lance looks at him, eyes fluttery and mouth parted, and he begs, “fuck me like you mean it.”

Keith’s eyes blaze as he pounds into Lance, each thrust earning “ _ah, ah, ah_ ,” from Lance, who is sliding up the bed from the force of Keith’s fucking. “So warm and perfect for me, Lance,” Keith groans as he thrusts in one deep stroke, and Lance’s breath hitches for one second before he moans so loud, they hear a banging sound from the wall across.

Keith and Lance pause, stare at each other, and then break out into peals of laughter.

“You’re too loud,” Keith states, biting back another laugh. Lance has no qualms whatsoever, his laughter just as loud as his moaning, and Keith loves both equally.

“Okay, then I’ll keep quiet.” He mimics a zipper motion across his mouth. Keith only smirks. He pulls out till only the tip of his cock is in Lance. A hand grips Lance’s cock and deftly strokes it, but Lance clenches his jaw so hard he’s squinting.

Keith brushes the head of his cock leisurely out of Lance’s hole, noting with pleasure how Lance holds back a whimper. Instead, Keith shrugs. “Alright,” he says, and begins thrusting into his fist with a content hum, reaching a hand to slick back his hair.

Lance chokes at the kneeling man, reaches up, and grabs Keith from around the neck to tug him back down. He smacks Keith’s ass, mumbling, “you win. Fuck me, you—”

Keith is already sliding in.

After the first round, Lance is grumbling, shifting on the mattress. “This thing is too soft. Too bouncy.”

“Then let’s take this to the floor,” Keith suggests. He tosses the thick blanket to the floor and Lance takes the pillows with him.

Lance then throws Keith face down on the blanket, ass up and thighs spread, he cups those cheeks and spreads them to lick sloppily at Keith’s puckered hole. Keith nearly goes feral at the feeling, twitching and muffling his groans into the pillow.

And when Lance grabs Keith’s hips, presses his body flush against Keith’s back and begins fucking into him, Keith is the loud one this time.

*

_Five years later_

Ever since the cure three years ago, things have been better. Zombies were either cured, or if they were too far gone, they were put down. People were rescued—even by Lance and Keith who went as runners to save survivors. Doses were administered, cities were rebuilt, people were living again. There are memorials all over the place.

And Lance? Well, with his large, _large_ reward, he got a nice apartment in New York City. Keith lives with him and they work in the city happily.

They got married on a beach on a sunny day eight months ago.

It was the second happiest day of Keith’s life. The first was finding Lance between dumpsters.

So, Keith wakes up to this every morning. The sunlight streams through the curtains. It bathes the room in rose gold hues and when Keith turns on the bed to face Lance, he never fails to smile.

Lance is not a morning person, so Keith always gets the chance to admire his beautiful husband, whose hair is a mess and he snores, but that’s peace to Keith.

He wakes Lance up with soft and warm kisses to his shoulders, brushing hands along Lance’s bare back and just living in this warm feeling. Keith still gets these nightmares where he turns into a zombie and everything was so cold and distant then and when he recalls it, it feels terrifying because he was that and he was a second away from killing Lance.

“You’re brooding again,” Lance mumbles huskily, turning his head and blinking sleepy blue eyes at him. “Kiss me more.”

Keith obliges, laying a trail of kisses up Lance’s neck before pressing a last kiss to his mouth. Lance quirks a smile.

“I love you,” Keith says into the quiet morning.

Lance hums, nuzzling further into his pillow. “Love you, too, Perseus.”

A couple of moments pass when Keith thinks Lance has fallen asleep, but then Lance says, “Keith, I think we found our better place.”

Keith can only agree.


End file.
